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Thursday, January 05, 2017

WE LIVE IN DEFIANCE...SO GET USED TO IT!

I love that about Jesus. He was so uniquely defiant. It's the very nature of God; but we tend to view such as a negative descriptive of one's walk. It's not.

Don't you get it? Faith defies what can be seen. We walk by one; not by both.

Spell-binding creation developed because God simply spoke words? Opposing armies far outnumbering God's soldiers? Sure. Yet, His small band of misfit warriors defied the odds...and won impossible battles. And real Jesus went to his real execution near a real Jerusalem that he would die a real death...and be raised to a real new life.

Defiance is all over the Son of God...and his followers.

A crucial segment of kingdom life/church life is that of dying. Resurrection power is never current until death power had its say first. So don't be discouraged with what's on your plate at the moment. With no death, there is no expectation to experience new life; but rather, a strenuous self-pumping up of exiting efforts just hoping that they will bear fruit somehow. We must not fear death in our persons, in our programs, and in our plans.

Why? Because our God is poised with SURPRISES once death concludes that it has had its final say.

Our hope is firm; it is strong, because God has embedded into our system a truth...He creates something from nothing. Could it be that one of the reasons many lead a life of lackluster in the church is because we cannot bear to yield to the death process which God has legitimately re-termed to be the life process? Could it be that many of the things we tend to fight contain the very impetus of new life, new hope, new thrill?

It is no wonder that congregations who fight change die an unnatural death which, in reality, would have been productive if we would have been willing to die ahead of time to our preferences in order to note the SURPRISES of God. This has always been the nature of kingdom life. The question for us is not first how do we live; but will we die in order to continually live? Dying to self is not a one-time moment, as we plead, that happens a baptism. It is a life-long process of dying to live and living to die...again....and then again.

So I offer my voice to church leaders who feel that you might be failing. In reality you might, rather, discover yourself being called to die to systems or dreams or pressures so that God could break out with something new. I'm expecting Him to show me something amazing for our steps and stages in life because God's got the talent...and the heart to keep the creativity flowing...from above!

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Terry Rush

My World

We all get lost in our workaholism, people pleasing, and numbing behaviors as we try to escape the pain of life and the messiness of loving others. But some of us appear more whole than others, and that may be the greatest danger of all. It results in the last addiction: we rely on ourselves to heal ourselves, and so we miss the healing path.

Sharon Hersh...The Last Addiction

I miss being in the company of risky and complex thinkers, people who are invested in our culture and who challenge me to think to the edges of my comfort zones. I believed then and I believe now that where everybody thinks the same nobody thinks very much.Rosaria Butterfield...The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert